Translators: Ghoststaker, CoCayn Editor: Namorax, Mecani, Cerulean33
Proofreader: ImAKami Collaborator: Imoutolicious LNT
Please note that this version is translated from the Chinese RAW so some names and minor details could be wrong. Imoutolicious will correct our version and we will re-release a final version at a later date.
Have fun reading!
The home of the village chief was near the Village Square, and right past the entrance was an large, open workspace next to a kitchen. Inside this empty livingroom stood a shabby table with several chairs around it.
Ainz was sitting on one such chair and observed the interior.
Shining through the lattice windows, the sun illuminated every corner of the house. Even without the use of 「Night Vision」 it was possible to clearly see the surroundings.
Ainz watched the woman standing in the kitchen corner and the various tools lying around the house.
No mechanical appliances could be seen anywhere.
When Ainz started considering that science and technology were less developed in this world, he immediately realized that his expectations were a bit naive. Even with magic, science wouldn’t necessarily advance quickly.
In order to avoid the sun, Ainz cautiously moved his hand on the old table. The simple work table started to wobble even though the metal gauntlets weren’t that heavy. The chair also creaked loudly, reacting to Ainz’s shifting weight.
In the truest meaning of the word, poor.
In order to put it out of the way, Ainz leaned his staff against the table. The staff reflected the sunlight, which created various to bright reflections. Although he was in a rundown village home, he still found himself surrounded by the illusions of a mythical world. Ainz recalled the amazed expressions of the villagers.
Upon beholding the high level staff Ainz and his companions had created, the villagers were in awe, causing Ainz to feel very proud. However, this fleeting feeling immediately became merely a normal level of happy, causing Ainz to furrow his non-existent eyebrows.
He really disliked his forced composure. However, being too scatter-brained would make it difficult for him to resolve future problems. Reflecting on this, Ainz prepared himself for the challenge in front of him:
He needed to negotiate with the village chief about the reward for saving the village.
Ainz’s true objective was gathering information rather than gold, but directly asking for information would raise suspicions.
Although this small village shouldn’t be too much of a problem, Ainz was still worried about the authorities of the land. If such people knew that Ainz frequently mingled with the villagers to gain information about this world, they would immediately manipulate him.
Am I being too cautious?
Ainz felt like this situation was similar to dashing across the road. There was a chance that he could get into a fatal accident at any moment. In other words, there might be a chance that he would meet with the world’s strongest fighters.
Ghoststaker: Remember to look left and right in case of Martial artists…
Strength was relative.
Ainz might’ve been stronger than anyone he had met in this village, however that didn’t mean he was stronger than everyone else in this world. Also, right now Ainz was an undead and judging from the girl’s past reactions, the general disposition towards undead was very obvious.
He needed knowledge about his situation and he had to be careful since he could be attacked at any time by humans who hated him.
"I kept you waiting."
The village chief sat down on the seat across from Ainz and his wife stood behind him.
The village chief had dark, muscular skin and a face full of wrinkles.
From a glance you could tell that his robust body was forged through heavy manual labor. Half of his hair was already white.
Although his cotton clothes were stained with dirt, they didn’t smell.
From the weary look of his face, one would guess that he was more than forty years old. His actual age however was hard to accurately discern.
Apparently the today’s events caused him to age a few years. The village chief’s wife seemed to be as old as he was.
Although she formerly had the charm of a slim, delicate beauty, many years of hard farm work have washed it almost completely away. Her face was full of freckles. Now she was only a skinny, old auntie with disheveled, shoulder-length black hair. Even if viewed in the sunlight, its color would still be dull.
"Please."
The old lady put a humble village cup on the table. Albedo wasn’t served because she was still walking around the village.
Ainz raised his hand to decline the steaming cup with the boiled water.
He didn’t feel thirsty and he couldn’t take off his mask. But since he saw the hard work put into preparing the water, he should have declined earlier.
By the way, the hard work refers to the task of boiling the water.
She started with a flint. Showering small sparks onto thin wood chips, she then let the fire grow larger. It took her a while to get the stove’s fire going, and then she had to wait until the hot water boiled.
She didn’t use electricity, but a fire she made by hand to boil the water. This was the first time Ainz saw anything like this and, he was very interested in the process. In Ainz’s original world, everyone in the past used gas to cook, so what she just did should be about as hard.
Regarding technology, Ainz wanted to use the opportunity to gather some information. Thinking this way, Ainz once again faced the village chief.
“Even though you boiled water especially for me, I’m truly sorry.”
"You are too kind, there’s no need to apologize."
Ainz, who is gently bowing his head to apologize, made the couple feel uneasy. They couldn’t imagine that the person ordering the "Death Knight" around would actually bow his head in order to apologize.
But this idea wasn’t the least bit strange to Ainz. Showing a friendly attitude before they started the negotiations was definitely a good thing.
Of course, he could always deal with it as he did with those sisters, using 「Confuse Humanoid」
or some other magic to pry out information and later use high level magic to change their memories. But that kind of thing should only be used as a last resort because the MP consumption for doing that would be too high.
Ainz recalled the feeling of using up MP: His body would feel oddly tired, as if it had lost something.
After he put on the mask and gloves, he had to use a gigantic amount of MP just to change ten seconds’ worth of memories.
“... Then let us get to the point, the discussion about my reward.”
“Yes. However, before we start the negotiation… Thank you very much!”
The Village Chief bowed in thanks, his head almost hitting the table. His wife also followed suit and bowed:
“If it wasn’t for you, all of the villagers would be dead. We are really grateful!”
Ainz was surprised to receive such heartfelt gratitude.
Recalling his previous life, he never received such thanks... No, the two girls from before also thanked him like this. It was just that he never saved anyone before, and now he felt like he did the right thing.
He didn’t dislike receiving this kind of sincere thanks even when he was still human, although he still felt embarrassed——perhaps this was a remnant of his humanity.
Note: We were confused by “鈐木悟” and after debating this was the best we could come up with.
“Please raise your heads. Like I said before, this is nothing you should be concerned about.
Because I wasn’t helping you for free.”
“We know that, but please allow us to thank you nonetheless. Because of your help many villagers were able to survive.”
“... As long as they pay more. First, let’s discuss the matter of the reward. As the Village Chief you should be rather busy.”
“Nothing is more important than spending some time with our saviour, however following my principles would be the sincerest form of respect.”
The Village Chief slowly raised his head and Ainz quickly started to use his non-existent brain.
To not rely on magic, but conversation to gain his information.
───How troublesome.
How much effect would his past experiences with sales have on the situation right now? Ainz hoped he would be able to use at least half of his old skills. Having mentally prepared himself, he spoke:
“... Then I’ll get straight to the point, how much can you pay me?”
“We cannot afford to be stingy for our savior. Regarding copper and silver coins, if we do not collect from everyone, we are unsure how much we have, but as for copper coins, we should have about 3000 now.”
Ainz still didn’t know how much that was worth, so he ridiculed himself in his heart.
Asking right now would be a fatal mistake, he should take a different approach and slowly guide the subject.
Anyways, since I was a useless salesman originally, my business skills were also very poor.
Although the number felt like a lot, but he did not know the value of the money, and thus could not determine whether this amount was appropriate. He absolutely has to avoid accepting too low a number or raise the number too high, otherwise he will expose his own ignorance.
No, the fact that they didn’t say that they would give him four large cows was enough to make him breathe a sigh of relief.
About to fall deep into depression, his mental state quickly settled down. Ainz reassured himself, he was really thankful for his undead body, at the same time he learnt something.
And that was, copper coins and silver coins was this village’s main currency. At the same time he also wanted to know where do these two currencies stand against each other, but he had no confidence about this information.
First he had to learn more about the value of copper coins. Not knowing something basic could become rather troublesome. But to know nothing about the value of currency would be
extremely suspicious.
Before he started wanting to learn more about this world, he wanted to keep a low profile.
So that was why he kept on thinking, trying to avoid an even greater failure.
“It would be hard to carry so many small coins, I hope can be exchanged with coins of a bigger value.”
“Forgive us, it would be great if we could use gold coins to pay you. But… our village doesn’t have any gold coins…”
Ainz suppressed the urge to heave a sigh of relief.
The village chief’s answer turned the conversation into the direction Ainz wanted. So Ainz thought harder about his next question:
“So it’s like that. In that case, I simply wish to use the money I receive to buy goods from the village, I just want you to give me enough for that purpose.”
Ainz secretly opened his Item Chest from within his robes and removed two YGGDRASIL gold coins from it. One of the coins had a woman’s profile while the other had the profile of a man.
The first coin was introduced after the [Valkyrie’s Downfall] Event, it was a revision of the currency used by the players until then, while the latter coin was the old currency that was used before.
Although both coins had the same value, both of them had different meanings for Ainz.
The older coin had accompanied Ainz from the moment he first started playing YGGDRASIL until the founding of Ainz Ooal Gown. It was during the peak of his guild’s activity when the game introduced the new coins, but since they had already completed all their equipment, the new coins were simply put into their Item Chests.
Becoming a skeleton mage, using magic to defeat monsters on the map, receiving gold coins which floated in the air. Going into a labyrinth on his own and defeating ferocious monsters on his own, obtaining a mountain of gold coins through great difficulty. After his guild members went through the labyrinth, sold all of their gained data crystals, earning these gold coins symbolizing their glorious history───
But Ainz threw away those nostalgic memories.
Keeping the old coin, he took out the new coin.
Once he placed the gold coin on the table, the Village Chief and his wife both opened their eyes in surprise.
“Thi-, this is!”
“This is the currency of a far away land. Can it be used here?”
“It should be possible… Please wait a moment.”
Ainz heaved a sigh of relief after hearing that it could be used, in the meantime the Village Chief left his seat, went into another room and brought something back you would only see in a history book.
That would be an antique balancing scale.
Next was the wife’s job, she took the gold coin along with a round object, seemingly comparing their size. After she saw enough, she placed the coin on one side of the scale and placed a scale weight on the other.
This looked like a process called 'weighing currency'.
Ainz dug through his memories, thinking over the meaning of the wife’s actions. If the first step would be comparing the size of this country’s currency to the other, then the next should be confirming the gold content of the coin.
It looked like the gold coin was heavier, since the weight on the other side of the scale began to rise. The wife puts another weight on the scale in order to balance both sides.
“Looks like it’s about the weight of two gold coins…. Please, may I ask if it is possible to scratch the surface…”
“Wi-, wife, you are being too rude! Please forgive us, my wife has said some insolent words…”
She seemed to think that the coin was gold plated. However Ainz wasn’t really unhappy, or angry.
“Go ahead… but if it’s really made of pure gold, you better compensate me with its full value, okay?”
"N-, no need, I am really sorry."
The village chief’s wife apologized and returned the coin.
“Don’t mind it, I want to know something else. What are your thoughts about this coin? It looks like a carved sculpture, right?"
"Yes, it looks very nice. Which country is this currency from?"
"Now this ─── this country doesn’t exist anymore."
"Oh, really..."
"…… Although it has the same weight as two common gold coins, coupled with the artwork one should expect a rather high value, am I right? "
"That might be... but I’m no merchant and don't know how to properly judge an artworks worth..."
"Hahaha, you are right. So if I were to go shopping, this coin would be the equivalent of two common gold coins right?"
"Well, of course."
"Actually, I have several such coins. What kind of goods can you sell me? Of course, I’ll only buy as much as you’re willing to provide and it doesn’t matter to me if I have to pay the normal prices. You can even freely check out the coins. Please—— "
"Ainz Ooal Gown-sama!"
Ainz was startled by the village chief’s sudden shout, whose expression had become even more serious than before.
"... Calling me Ainz is enough."
"So it is Ainz-sama?" The village chief was very skeptical at beginning, but after nodding several times he continued:
"I am well aware of what Ainz-sama is trying to say."
Becoming rather confused, Ainz wondered if a big question mark would pop up above his head.
This must be a misunderstanding, but since he had no idea what the village chief was planning to say Ainz had no idea on how to react.
"I am well aware that Ainz-sama does not want to sell himself short, since it is understandable that you expect a fitting reward for your hard work. To hire a person as powerful as Ainz-sama, we would need a lot of money, but you would like to receive something else in addition to the three thousand copper coins, am I right? "
Being unable to follow village chief’s train of thought, Ainz’s mind was in a mess and he couldn’t help being grateful he decided to wear this mask. Ainz took out the gold coins in order to
estimate how much he would be able to buy with it since he wanted to roughly evaluate the market prices in this world. How did things turn out like this?
Without giving Ainz time to speak up, the village chief continues:
"However, just as I said before, the maximum amount this village can pay is around three thousand copper coins. You will certainly suspect there is more, but I can definitely assure you that we aren’t hiding anything from our savior Ainz-sama."
The Village Chief’s face was full of sincerity and it didn’t look like he was lying. If he was deceiving Ainz, Ainz could only blame for his own inability to read peoplestanding.
“No, we would never be able to gather the proper amount of money to pay a person as powerful as Ainz-sama. If everyone in the village gathered all their money, perhaps we might be able to satisfy Ainz-sama, but… our village has lost many people, if we were to pay you more then these 3000 copper coins we wouldn’t be able to survive the next season. It is the same with material goods, many fields will be short of hands because of our losses. So if we gave our supplies to you now, our future would be quite bleak. Although it is rude towards our savior, but if it is remotely possible… could we pay you back via installments?”
Huh? Could this be a great opportunity?
Having a moment of enlightenment, Ainz pretended to go into deep thought. His objective was right in front of him, now he could only pray to be successful. After a few seconds, Ainz finally spoke:
“I understand. I won’t ask for a reward.”
“Huh? Wh-.... Why?”
The Village Chief and his wife were dumbfounded. Ainz gently raised his hand, signalling that he still had something to say. During negotiations one had to properly consider what to say and what not to say, this was really troublesome and he didn’t know whether it was possible to smoothly get the information he desired, but he still had to try.